2000 Convention Resolutions Report

by Sharon Maneki

From the Editor: Sharon Maneki chairs the NFB Resolutions Committee.
The following is her brief description of each resolution considered by the
committee at the 2000 convention. The texts of the thirty-four resolutions
passed by the convention follow this article immediately. This is what Sharon
says:

At the Resolutions Committeemeeting Sharon Omvig reads into
the microphone while Sharon
Maneki listens.

By longstanding tradition the resolutions committee meets on the first day
of registration for the convention. This year was no exception. The meeting
was held on the afternoon of Monday, July 3. Another tradition is that the
resolutions committee is large and truly represents the breadth and depth
of the Federation. This year forty-three members comprised the committee.
It is also customary to have a large audience in attendance. The 2000 convention
followed this tradition as well.

The 2000 convention will be remembered for the record or near record number
of resolutions introduced and for the innovative solutions recommended in
these resolutions. The committee considered thirty-six resolutions. Thirty-four
of them came to the floor of the convention. Two were defeated in committee.
The thirty-four resolutions passed by the convention deal with suggestions
to the 106th Congress, changes to Social Security, reforms in rehabilitation,
improvements needed in education, and nonvisual access issues. The participation
of so many authors enhanced the quality and diversity of these resolutions.

The convention passed two resolutions expressing opposition to legislation
under consideration by the 106th Congress. Carlos Servan, the Deputy Director
of the new Nebraska Commission for the Blind, introduced resolution 2000-15.
This resolution expresses the Federation's opposition to H.R. 2870, the Medicare
Vision Rehabilitation Coverage Act. One major reason for our opposition to
this bill is that learning to live as a blind person is not a medical issue.
As the resolution explains: "This legislation would have the ultimate consequence
of replacing the coordinated and comprehensible approach envisioned in the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, with a fragmented and bureaucratic
rehabilitation-delivery system, governed more by the objectives of managed
care than by the provision of services needed by and planned for the individual."

Resolution 2000-19, sponsored by Scott LaBarre, President of the National
Association of Blind Lawyers, outlines the reasons for our opposition to H.R.
3590, the Americans With Disabilities (ADA) Notification Act. Title III of
the ADA prohibits public accommodations such as restaurants, hotels, stores,
banks, and other covered entities from discriminating against individuals
with disabilities. This bill would require a potential plaintiff in Title
III ADA cases to notify the owner of public accommodation of his or her intention
to sue and describe how the owner discriminated against the person with a
disability. The potential plaintiff would also have to wait ninety days before
filing a suit. Such an approach hardly enables the aggrieved blind person
to obtain the desired goods and services.

In the National Federation of the Blind we take a proactive approach. We
did not merely pass resolutions opposing existing legislative proposals. We
also passed several resolutions calling on Congress to initiate and pass legislation.
Kristen Cox, Assistant Director of the NFB's Department of Governmental Affairs,
sponsored resolution 2000-02, which urges Congress to enact legislation to
compel publishers of textbooks to provide usable versions of electronic texts
purchased for sighted children to school districts that serve blind children.
Blind students must receive their materials in accessible formats if they
are to have a quality education.

Two resolutions called upon the Congress to improve the plight of blind
sheltered shop workers. In resolution 2000-03, introduced by Jason Ewell,
a 1997 scholarship winner who attends John Carroll University in Ohio, we
demand that wage equity for blind individuals be included in any changes to
the federal minimum wage law. The second resolution was also introduced by
a student, Angela Sasser, President of the Texas Association of Blind Students.
In resolution 2000-07, we urge Congress to amend the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act
to ensure that blind shop workers have the opportunity to hold management
and supervisory positions.

Once again we urge Congress to eliminate earnings limits placed on blind
people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance. As Sheila Koenig,
Secretary of the National Association of Blind Educators and the author of
resolution 2000-06, explained: "The earnings limit is the number one barrier
to productive work by the blind."

Resolution 2000-23 also calls for changes in Social Security policy. As
its author, Mrs. Cox explained that blind people who receive Social Security
benefits must report earnings from work activity. Frequently disputes about
whether the beneficiary has been overpaid arise. During the appeal process
the Social Security Administration stops all benefits even though a final
determination is yet to be made. This resolution insists that the Social Security
Administration abandon this unfair policy. Further we call upon Congress to
amend the Social Security Act to eliminate this policy if the Administration
fails to take action. These resolutions demonstrate that the Federation will
be very busy on Capitol Hill during the coming year.

The convention passed six resolutions concerning rehabilitation services.
Jim Antonacci, president of the NFB of Pennsylvania, proposed resolution 2000-01.
This resolution expresses our opposition to efforts made in Louisiana and
Florida to privatize rehabilitation services. We call upon the Commissioner
of the Rehabilitation Services Administration to prevent privatization from
occurring in any state.

Resolution 2000-10 promotes informed choice by calling upon the Rehabilitation
Services Administration to publish such statistics as outcome information
on an accessible Web site. Mrs. Cox, the proponent of this resolution, explained
that such information would be useful to clients and advocates as they develop
their individualized plans for employment.

In resolution 2000-14 we call upon the Commissioner of the Rehabilitation
Services Administration to establish a policy prohibiting state vocational
rehabilitation agencies from counting blind people who work in sheltered employment
as successfully rehabilitated clients. Noel Nightingale, a member of the national
Board of Directors, President of the NFB of Washington, and the author of
the resolution, remarked that sheltered employment should not be considered
a final employment outcome for blind people. They must have access to further
vocational rehabilitation services.

Jim Willows, President of the NFB of California, proposed two resolutions
to enhance rehabilitation services. First, resolution 2000-17 calls for the
elimination of the order of selection for blind persons. Order of selection
is a procedure that state agencies use to determine eligibility for vocational
rehabilitation services during times of tight budgets.

Mr. Willows's second resolution, 2000-27, calls upon the Commissioner of
the Rehabilitation Services Administration to reissue policy guidance ordering
state agencies to purchase adaptive technology for blind employees. Too many
state agencies try to make the employer pay for this technology instead of
doing the job themselves.

The last resolution dealing with rehabilitation is 2000-29, proposed by
Ted Young, a long-time Federation leader in Pennsylvania. Because of this
resolution, the Federation will seek federal support to establish specialized
independent living centers to serve blind people.

The convention passed five resolutions concerning education. The trend in
kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade education is to measure progress in education
by proficiency testing in subject areas and school-accountability testing.
Three resolutions address problems with these tests experienced by blind students
across the country.

In resolution 2000-09, introduced by Pam Dubel, Director of Youth Services
at the Louisiana Center for the Blind, we urge state departments of education
to adopt policies to insure that blind students have the opportunity to participate
in all testing programs and to obtain standard high school diplomas.

Kim Aguillard, a 2000 national scholarship winner who just graduated from
high school, proposed resolution 2000-13. In this resolution we urge state
departments of education to adopt policies compelling all developers of standardized
educational tests to consult with professionals in the blindness field and
blind people as they develop proficiency and accountability tests so that
these tests can be readily and appropriately adapted in nonvisual formats
for blind and visually impaired students.

Resolution 2000-22 was also introduced by a student, Allison Hilliker, from
Michigan. This resolution affirms the authority of the student's Individualized
Education Program team to determine appropriate accommodations for the student
to use when taking these standardized tests.

Another area of testing in which problems with accommodations have developed
is the General Educational Development (GED) test, the alternative path to
completion of high school. Doris Willoughby, a renowned author of books and
articles on the education of blind children, addressed this issue in resolution
2000-25. The GED test regulations illegally prohibit the use of a live reader
to read test questions. A second problem is that there is some indication
that the test will not be available in Braille when it is revised. In resolution
2000-25 we call upon the American Council on Education to administer the GED
test in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The last education issue that the convention dealt with by resolution was
the role of disabled student services offices on university campuses. The
two sponsors of this resolution, 2000-31, have direct knowledge of the problems.
Shawn Mayo is President of the National Association of Blind Students, and
Jim Marks directs a disabled student services program in Montana. The resolution
urges that: "This organization urge the Association on Higher Education and
Disability and the U. S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights
to join with it in developing and publishing a guideline and best-practice
model for accommodating blind students in higher education to maximize learning
and eliminate the unnecessary, unintentional, and widespread fostering of
dependency now occurring on America's college campuses."

The largest category of resolutions passed by the convention dealt with
access issues. Several resolutions covered policies, while the remainder dealt
with access to specific sources of information. These resolutions also urge
both the government and private industries to work closely with us to eliminate
nonvisual access barriers.

Michael Gosse, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation
of the Blind of Maryland, proposed resolution 2000-11. This resolution would
expand nonvisual access by calling upon Congress to apply the accessibility
requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to all recipients
of federal grants and contracts. Currently Section 508 accessibility requirements
apply only to the federal government, itself.

Resolution 2000-16 would expand nonvisual access requirements by including
them in the Universal-Service-Initiative provisions of the 1996 Telecommunications
Act. The purpose of this initiative is to provide greater access to the Internet
and other telecommunications services through public schools and libraries.
In this resolution we call upon the Federal Communications Commission to develop
rules covering nonvisual access. This resolution was proposed by Mrs. Cox
and Steve Jacobson, a leader in the NFB of Minnesota and Vice President of
the NFB in Computer Science.

Four resolutions address research access issues. In its National Digital
Library Program the Library of Congress is digitizing selected collections
of its archival materials. Nathanael Wales, president of the California Association
of Blind Students, proposed resolution 2000-18. In this resolution we call
upon Congress to make sure that the National Digital Library Program materials
are accessible to blind people.

The remaining three resolutions concern access to the World Wide Web with
its wealth of research material. Gary Wunder, a member of the national Board
of Directors and President of the NFB of Missouri, proposed resolution 2000-21.
This resolution offers specific suggestions to industry and training institutions
to promote the design of accessible Web sites.

Resolution 2000-30, proposed by Chris Danielsen, a leader in the NFB of
South Carolina, offers an interesting suggestion to manufacturers and service
providers of personal digital assistants that could also increase access to
Web information for the blind. The resolution reads in part: Personal digital
assistant "manufacturers and service providers have used specially encoded
electronic files. . . which provide text versions of information available
on Internet Web sites in a format designed to be compatible with the PDA technology
and small screens used on PDA's. . . ." It is the opinion of the National
Federation of the Blind that this method of presenting Web-based information
could also be used effectively by blind users of desktop computers and other
access devices." We intend to work with industry to explore these possibilities
further.

John Miller, President of the Science and Engineering Division of the National
Federation of the Blind, and members of the Federation's Research and Development
Committee came up with a method to increase access to scientific and mathematical
material. In resolution 2000-24 we call on publishers who offer scientific
publications on the World Wide Web to offer these publications in MathML,
an electronic markup language for displaying and reusing mathematical and
scientific notation.

The convention passed four resolutions dealing with access to information
delivered by technologies other than computers. Brian Miller, a former scholarship
winner and a leader in the NFB of Iowa, proposed resolution 2000-05, concerning
audio description on television. As the resolution explains: "The blind are
routinely denied access to text information flashed on the screen such as
emergency weather updates, news bulletins scrolled along the bottom of the
screen, sports scores, program guides, phone numbers in advertisements, the
identities of speakers during news programs, and other data not otherwise
read aloud. The resolution then resolves that: "This organization call upon
the Federal Communications Commission to modify its currently proposed and
narrowly focused mandate for descriptive video in favor of one that would
prioritize making universally accessible, important on-screen textual information
available to America's blind television viewers through a standardized audio
format."

Resolution 2000-04, mandating audio description of all television programming
and DVD, was defeated in committee. The resolutions committee also killed
resolution 2000-12, calling for the support of low-power FM radio.

Resolution 2000-28 was proposed by Curtis Chong, the director of technology
for the National Federation of the Blind. In this resolution we "call upon
national, state, and local election officials to abandon their misguided efforts
to develop tactile overlay schemes and to concentrate instead upon providing
full nonvisual access to electronic voting technologies which permit the blind
to cast and verify their votes without sighted assistance."

Resolution 2000-32 proposes that the cellular phone industry provide nonvisual
access to all cell phone features. This resolution was sponsored by Cary Supalo,
a 1994 NFB scholarship winner who currently attends Penn State University,
and Jamal Powell from Illinois.

Kevan Worley, the newly elected President of the Blind Merchants Association,
sponsored resolution 2000-34, which calls upon the cable and satellite-dish
industry to work with us to develop an effective, convenient, and inexpensive
method to make all on-screen programming information available to blind consumers.

The remaining six resolutions cover a variety of subjects that do not fit
into one specific category. Curtis Willoughby, a long time federation leader
from Colorado, proposed resolution 2000-08 concerning accessible pedestrian
signals. We urge the United States Access Board to adopt standards that provide
for tactile accessible pedestrian signals only where unusual circumstances
exist and where other methods of making the intersection pedestrian-friendly
are in use but are not sufficient.

The resolution also resolves that: "This organization insist that traffic
engineers and public officials employ all practical methods to make all intersections
pedestrian-friendly and use tactile rather than audible signals where accessible
pedestrian signals are installed."

Most conventions pass at least one resolution concerning the Randolph-Sheppard
program. Resolution 2000-20 expresses our opposition to a proposal by the
General Services Administration to apply performance criteria to blind vendors
which are arbitrary, capricious, and not in compliance with the law. This
resolution was proposed by Larry Povinelli, Treasurer of the NFB of Virginia.

Restrictive dealerships of assistive technology were the subject of resolution
2000-26, proposed by Curtis Chong and Michael Jones, president of the NFB
of Alabama. In this resolution we call upon manufacturers of assistive technology
for the blind to eliminate practices which stifle competition and limit consumer
choice.

The convention passed two resolutions objecting to a new certification scheme
for professionals in the field of work with the blind. Resolution 2000-33
was proposed by Debbie Stein, First Vice President of the NFB of Illinois.
It outlines our objections to the Academy for the Certification of Vision
Rehabilitation and Education Professionals, which was incorporated this past
January.

Mrs. Cox proposed resolution 2000-36. In this resolution we call upon all
state and local education agencies to refrain from recognizing certification
by AER or by the Academy for the Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and
Education Professionals in determining qualifications for orientation and
mobility instructors.

The last resolution that I will describe in this article is resolution 2000-35.
It was proposed by Rami Rabby, a longtime federationist who works for the
U. S. Department of State and is currently stationed at the United Nations.
In this resolution we call upon the U. S. government fully to support the
formulation by the United Nations of an international convention on the rights
of people with disabilities.

The above information is merely an introductory description of the resolutions
considered and passed by the convention. Readers should examine the complete
text of each resolution to understand our policy on these subjects fully.